Only Time Will Tell
by funeral flowers
Summary: I cannot talk. I am a tree and trees cannot talk." She said. Insane!Bella, Slash!Sirius. Um.. this could be normal by my standards. Another one of those on my computer that I made better.


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Disclaimer: Not mine in any way.

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Author's Note: This is the spawn of studying for math exams. It is now summer, and I can work on it properly. The whole point is nothing. It has a cliffhanger ending. It is meant to be odd.

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Only Time Will Tell

Sirius leaned back and rested his hands on the back of his head, the O.W.L.s being passed back. His eyes wandered around the room as one of the packets of parchment was placed on his desk. His cold black orbs surveyed the room and then rested on the test. Question number one…

Bellatrix Black stood in the middle of the Common Room with her arms out straight and her feet together. She was bleeding under each eye, matching cuts on her cheeks. A giggle rose from her throat and escaped through her lips. Her teeth had blood on them too. She didn't move. Didn't speak. She just stood there. _I am a tree._ She thought to herself. _Trees don't giggle. Bad Bella._ She shook her 'branches' and tried not to breathe. _Trees don't breathe. They aren't alive._ Bella held her breath. She was asked if she was okay by a student. Bella didn't answer. She didn't breathe. She rattled her branches. She heard the echoing voice in the background. Who was it? Bella didn't know. Trees didn't have eyes. Hers were closed. She couldn't see. Her named was called. They wanted her to answer them. _Trees can't talk._ She thought, _I am a tree._ Her name was shouted. Bella didn't do anything but take in a sharp intake of breath before holding it again.

"I cannot talk. I am a tree and trees cannot talk." She said. Bella was then told, no, she was not a tree; she was a sixteen-year-old girl who thought she was a tree. "No. I am a tree." The voice that lied and told her she was not a tree, but a person, got loud and angry. Bellatrix, you are not a tree, it said. Bella didn't listen and shook her head - and her branches. "Tree." She said like a stubborn four-year-old. Wash your face, here. The person that the voice belonged to handed her a washcloth. Bella didn't take it. She shook her head again and then the voice yelled at her. Ms. Black, you are to lower your arms this instant. Bella opened her eyes and saw that she was not in a primitive forest, she was in the common room. She turned her head. They were arms and hands and fingers, not branches and leaves. Tears welled up in her eyes. McGonagall embraced her as she began to cry and the blood looked pink and watered down from the tears.

Bella broke down in the teacher's arms and fell to the ground and sat in a fetal position with her hands around her knees, pushed to her chest, on her side on the ground and cried. She was now a rock. Rocks did nothing. They were silent and didn't breathe or see or talk. Her stomach rumbled. Rocks couldn't be hungry or cry or eat. Bella looked up at McGonagall. "Rocks cannot cry." Come here, McGonagall said. Bella reached for the hand given to her and stood up, the cuts stinging and almost clean from her crying. The teacher led her out of the common room and to the Hospital Wing. She kept insisting that she was okay, she was okay. Rocks were okay. They didn't get cuts and they didn't bleed. Why were these people saying she wasn't a rock? Of course she was a rock. Bella lay like she was a rock, on top of the covers. She closed her eyes and imagined she was by a lake. She was a lonely rock aside a lake where frogs jumped and stayed on. She was asked a question and didn't reply.

What did you cut yourself with, they asked her. "A knife." She replied softly, still lying like a rock with her eyes closed. "But I really shouldn't talk. I'm a rock you know." Bella heard her own voice, hoarse and slow, echo off of her stomach and thighs. Was it her voice? Bella lay still. Where is your knife, they questioned her. "I don't remember. In my pocket." Rocks don't have pockets. They sit still and do nothing their entire lives. They do nothing. They lay still. McGonagall asked her where the knife was. Bella smiled. Rocks couldn't smile. Was she a rock? Yes. Otherwise she would hurt. She had to not hurt. She wasn't a tree. Trees could stand up. Bella couldn't stand. It hurt too much. Bella started to hurt. "My face hurts." She said. She felt a hand in her pocket and felt her face hurt more and more as the numbness faded away and the pain became more and more evident. She heard the two women converse and she could pick out some words. But rocks couldn't hear. She heard her name. She heard knife. She heard suicide, with a question mark at the end. Bella felt nauseated by the pain. Her mother was dead. Her father was in Azkaban. Her face hurt. She wasn't a tree. She wasn't a rock. She was in pain. She felt like she was melting. And as she lay there, uncurling and laying sill, she was a sixteen-year-old girl.

Sixteen. And not a tree. With blood down her face and in her eyes and mouth. Not a rock. With a sharp pain in the deep cuts below her eyes. She felt cold. She felt hungry and alone. Her eyes shut and she felt dizzy. Bella moaned. She was a flowerbed. With rows of dead roses. She was the silver line of foam on a wave. She was Bellatrix Rhiannon Black, and she was a known mental patient.

Sirius leaned back on the back legs of his chair. He stared at the rest of the people in the classroom. He was done with the exams, the first one done actually. Was that okay? Everyone else was still working. Was he supposed to be done? Had he missed part of the test? He hid the expression on his face and quickly checked his papers for any extra problems. There weren't any. Sirius looked over to Snape. He was bending over his paper and writing in that small, cramped handwriting and his nose was touching the paper. Sirius saw grease spots where his hair touched the page.

His glance meandered and settled on Remus. He visually traced the lines his features made, the sandy hair that was in a shaggy bowl cut, the brown eyes scanning the page, left to right and back again, the brows above them furrowed in thought. His aristocratic nose that had such a perfect curve and those light pink lips set against the background of a pale and freckled face. He was beautiful. Sirius knew Remus's secret and still thought so. Sirius dragged his gaze from Remus to James. James was working furiously.

His quill scrawled endlessly across the parchment. His dark black hair fell across his glasses and hid the hazel eyes that had attracted Sirius to him in the first place. Sirius smiled to himself and crossed his arms in front of his chest. James then let his quill down and cracked his knuckles. He turned to Sirius and nodded his head upwards swiftly, and smiled. Sirius returned the nod and noticed James was writing something on his scrap parchment, the letters _L_ and _E_. Who was L.E? It was Evans. It was a known fact that James harbored some feelings towards Lily. Sirius sighed and looked around the room and his eyes settled back on Remus as Flitwick dropped the scrolls of parchment they were supposed to have turned in. Sirius pushed his upward to the girl ahead of him. Absentmindedly, their hands brushed across each other and the girl started squealing and giggling to the other girls.

Sirius leaned back farther and rested his hands on the back of his head.


End file.
